Heritage Rocking Horse project

So when my sister found that she was pregnant with her first child she requested a rocking horse. I found this design by "You Build it" then carried it a bit further by doing a heritage rocking horse. My family has always been a farming in some way, yet my generation is the last generation farmers so it is due time to make record of all that rich farming history. So I sat down with both sets of grandparents and began to get history of farming was able to reach all the way back to the 1850's such a interesting project and I consider my self rich to be involved in such a opportunity. Next couple of pics are not in perfect order but you will get the idea. The main body of the horse is out of ash, saddle is walnut, and the cross is out of olive. Ash was a good choice because of price, yet very hard to work with. The walnut and olive cross was my idea worked really good. First is down the main of the horse the flash of the camera bleached out the main it is the same color as the dark brown in the walnut. This pic give a better idea of main color. This was very pain staking process. First the lay out of over 300 holes then drill then lastly 12 hours to set each individual strand of leather lace. The plan calls for yarn I feared that it would become nasty to fast.

This pic of the tail I combined a tan color of leather lace a 1/3 tan to 2/3 dark brown turned out be be nice.

Here is a close up of the saddle basically I riped a solid piece of walnut down center the used table saw to rabbit the cross dimensions cut cross then set it and it turned out just perfect then set the center line of the board and traced the seat pattern so that the cross ended perfectly on center of the seat.

The only disappointment in this project was the handle on the head of the horse. Ash and a dull 7/8 drill bit did not produce a good result. The final result was all sin was covered by the main.

Look close and you can see the 300+ holes for the main.

The legs screwed to rocker frame loosely ready for the body.

MMM... Look at those beautiful legs. Plus the seven degree wedges ready to go. Hind sight tells me that I should of just screwed everthing with no glue. I glued the wedges to the leggs while they were still in the "ruff" just off the scroll saw. Glued the wedges to the legs then sanded them as one unit. The back legs I waited to sand the hind quarters area till I had the leggs on the boddy to sand that area as all one unit. I did a lot of sanding on all the glue areas and yet when I went to set finish down it showed off some glue residue left some how.

Dry fit had to establish weather the legs needed to be screwed to the body then set on the rocker frame or the legs set on rocker frame then set the body. As you see in the above pic I decided to to legs on rocker then set the body. Turned out good doing this way.

The first time I have ever done such work not to bad if I say so my self.

Rocker frame ready for horse!

Lots of work here I do not have a band saw done everything on scroll saw and ended up with lots of hard sanding.

Here is the lumber some how the 1 1/2 X 10''X10' for the body did not get in the pick. Total was $80 for materials so that was good the labor was unreal.

Body is cut out.

I did cheat a little on the rockers just glued the tops of the rockers and as long as your are careful to come close to match grain you never know it was two different sections.